


Do There Embrace

by parenthetical



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, SPN: Season One, ghost!Jess, spn: ep 2.01
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-04-01
Updated: 2007-04-01
Packaged: 2017-10-02 01:10:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/parenthetical/pseuds/parenthetical
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam's not stupid: he knows it's normal for grief to make people believe crazy things. But he's a Winchester, and so he also knows that normal is unlikely to apply in his case, however much he might wish it did.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Do There Embrace

**Author's Note:**

> To me this is a gen story, but your mileage may vary. Spoilers for the whole of season one and minor spoilers for episode 2.01. The title is from _To His Coy Mistress_ by Andrew Marvell.

_They're laughing helplessly, and Jess puts one hand on his chest and shoves playfully. "You're a lunatic, Sam!"_

_Sam hauls her close, still laughing, and buries his face in her hair. God, he loves her. "What's that make you?"_

_Jess pulls back just far enough to look up into his eyes. Her face is lit up with happiness as she grins up at him. "Your keeper. Good thing for you I'm studying psych, wacko."_

_He looks down at her hand, still pressed warm against his chest, and imagines one of the rings he was looking at yesterday shining on her finger. "Good thing for me," he repeats softly, and kisses her._

_Silently, he swears to himself **I'm never going to let you go**._

~*~

She's still beautiful. It's all he can think for a moment, just _God, you're so beautiful_.

In his nightmares, her beauty has been eclipsed: her golden hair blackened and singed, her skin bloody and scorched, her eyes agonised, betrayed, terrified.

Her face is unreadable now, but he feels the force of her gaze like a blow. The moving traffic and the people hurrying back and forth fade into the background as her eyes hold him riveted, forcing him to turn to keep her in sight as Dean guides the Impala around a corner.

She's dressed in white, something long and flowing that she would never have worn in life. But it's her impassive face and blank eyes that are the biggest change. It's unmistakeably Jess, yet unmistakeably not.

A large pole blocks his view - only for a second, but when the place where she had been comes back into view, she's gone.

He's aware of Dean's concerned glance in his direction, but there's nothing he can say. He blinks and settles back, staring straight ahead.

He wonders if he'll see her when he closes his eyes.

~*~

They stop in Martinsville for dinner, though Dean's talking about pressing on afterwards, maybe stopping for the night in St. Louis. Sam can't really bring himself to care either way. He mumbles something that could be taken as agreement, and ignores the way Dean's lips tighten before he turns off the road and parks the Impala in front of what a sign proclaims to be _Carla's Diner_.

Inside, Dean flirts outrageously with the waitress, and Sam can't... can't quite handle that right now, so he excuses himself and goes to the restroom to freshen up.

He bends over the sink, splashes water on his face, and when he straightens up, she's watching him in the mirror.

He whirls around, but of course there's no one there, just a creeping coldness that could be real or could be in his head.

Sam turns back to the mirror reluctantly: their encounter with Bloody Mary the previous day has left him wary.

He doesn't really expect her to still be there, but she is. Staring at him with the same unreadable expression she'd worn on the sidewalk that morning.

_God._

"Jess," Sam whispers, feeling like a fool, but with no idea what else to say.

She doesn't reply, doesn't move away, just watches him. He half-expects her to start accusing him, as Bloody Mary had done, but she remains silent.

The door to the restroom suddenly slams open, and Sam can't help but jump. He glances back over his shoulder to see a grizzled trucker come wandering in, and though his attention shifts only for a moment, it's a moment too long.

She's gone. If she was ever really there to begin with.

Sam stares into the mirror for a few seconds longer, before leaving the restroom and rejoining Dean.

His brother's eyes are sharp on him when Sam slides into the booth, but Dean limits himself to saying "Thought you might have gotten lost in there."

Sam just shakes his head. A snappy comeback is beyond him right now; his mind is whirling.

He's not sure if she - Jess, _god_ \- if she's real, empirically real, or whether he's just closer to losing it than he'd realised. She seemed real, but -

"Hey," Dean says, and judging by his frown, Sam must've spaced out there for longer than he'd thought. "You okay? Your head hurting, your eyes? We can still go find a doctor -"

"No," Sam says firmly, trying to pull himself together. "No, I'm okay." Though his brother has a point: maybe it was just a by-product of what Bloody Mary did?

Dean looks far from convinced. "Yeah, fine, whatever. Look, let's find a motel here for the night, okay?"

"Thought you wanted to press on," Sam says tiredly.

Dean shrugs. "No real rush. We can make up the time tomorrow. All right?"

Sam really couldn't care either way, doesn't know how to tell Dean that it's not exhaustion or Bloody Mary making him act this way. But even in the depths of his own confusion, Sam can tell how hard Dean is trying to help without prying into all the things Sam isn't telling him. So he just nods. "Yeah. All right."

~*~

He lies awake in the motel room, listening to the soft sound of Dean's breathing, and wonders whether he wants to get up and look in the bathroom mirror. Just to check. He's not sure which he'd prefer: seeing her there, or not. Since there's a good chance he'd wake up his brother, he closes his eyes and tries to sleep instead.

In his nightmares, her blood drips onto his face: one drop, two. As he tosses and turns, she looks down from the burning ceiling and asks him _Why?_ When he sits bolt upright in bed, gasping for air, he can still see the desperation in her eyes.

When he looks in the bathroom mirror, her eyes are blank, and she doesn't ask him anything at all.

~*~

Sam's not stupid: he knows it's normal for grief to make people believe crazy things. But he's a Winchester, and so he also knows that normal is unlikely to apply in his case, however much he might wish it did.

~*~

They drive six hundred miles the next day. Sam sees her reflected in three road signs, the cutlery when they stop for lunch, and his brother's sunglasses lying on the dashboard.

The following morning, he sees her reflection in the screen of his Palm when he tilts it the right way, and then again when he doesn't. It takes an email with the news that one of his friends has been arrested for murder to snap him out of it.

They drive four hundred miles back to St. Louis. Sam looks for her in reflections, but doesn't see her until he turns around to grab something from the back seat and puts his hand right through her.

She vanishes before he can do more than gasp.

"Problem?" Dean asks, glancing across, immediately on the alert.

Sam swallows hard and grabs the bag he was looking for. "No, no problem."

~*~

He's pretty sure Dean would consider it a problem.

Sam's discarded the idea that this could be just in his head, some normal manifestation of grief. He guesses he's not over wishing for a normal life yet; doesn't know if he ever will be, even if his best chance of one now appears to be haunting him.

He's not sure exactly what this is, though. He can think of a dozen different supernatural explanations off the top of his head, and he's fairly certain Dean would have a dozen more to offer. Vengeance spirit, restless spirit, revenant... Hell, the only reason he doesn't have to add Woman in White to the list is because he's been faithful to her. In life and... and since. But that still leaves plenty of possibilities he can't rule out - not to mention several others he'd rather not consider at all.

He doesn't know if she's dangerous. He doesn't know what she wants. He doesn't know what's holding her here.

There's not much he _does_ know, other than the fact that Dean sees the supernatural as his enemy, as intrinsically evil, and if Sam tells him about this, chances are he'll drive without stopping until they reach California, and Jessica's bones will be burning before midnight.

And Sam... can't quite face that. Not yet.

He can't face letting her go again.

Not yet.

~*~

In St. Louis, Sam sees an honest-to-god smile on her face for the first time since he kissed her cheek and told her not to worry, he'd be back in time for the interview.

It's too bad, really, that the shapeshifter's hands are locked tight around his neck, cutting off his air supply.

She smiles down at him over the shapeshifter's shoulder, and he wonders for a moment if she's pleased to see him in pain, if she wants him to suffer for what happened to her, or if this is something else. If she knows he'll be joining her in another minute or so.

When Dean bursts in, she vanishes. Sam gasps for air and doesn't try to get up: he's fairly sure his legs wouldn't hold him.

Dean crouches down next to the shapeshifter's body and looks across at him seriously. Sam's not sure what his brother sees in his face, but Dean nods.

It's more reassuring than Sam would expect, and he thinks that maybe, maybe Dean would listen. Maybe Sam could tell him.

~*~

At Jessica's funeral, the minister said that she was in a better place now.

Everyone said that to Sam, again and again. _She's in a better place now_. Everyone except Dean.

With Dean sitting in the pew beside him, Sam bowed his head and tried to pray that it was true.

He couldn't, though. The only place he honestly wanted her to be was there with him.

~*~

They hit the road and stay on it until they're far enough from St. Louis that Dean's freshly deceased status isn't likely to be an immediate problem, and then Dean checks them into a dingy motel where they stay until the bruises on Sam's neck start to fade.

Jess stands halfway between the bathroom and the door and watches him, expressionless again.

Sam thinks about telling Dean about his dreams. He thinks about telling Dean about Jess. He thinks about telling Dean the truth.

"How you feeling?" Dean asks.

"Fine," Sam lies.

~*~

In Iowa, Jess vanishes around about the time he lets Lori Sorensen kiss him.

He can't help but feel guilty, because for a moment - for a moment, he's tempted, even feeling Jess's cool eyes on him. He lets himself fall into the kiss, but then the weight of her eyes is gone and it's enough to make him pull back.

"That someone you lost?" Lori asks.

_You don't know the half of it_, Sam thinks.

He's angry at himself, later. Angry for being tempted; angry for pulling back. Jess's dead, but she hasn't moved on, and neither can he.

Being in love with a dead woman is even harder when neither of you can let go.

It's only now that he _doesn't_ see her in every reflection, now that she _isn't_ standing in the corner of every motel room, that he realises he'd been growing used to her new presence.

Now, all he has is his nightmares again.

~*~

Days turn into weeks, and Sam starts to think that by letting Lori kiss him, by even contemplating the idea of moving on, he's done something irreparable, broken whatever was holding Jess here.

He and Dean deal with a curse involving plagues of bugs, two routine poltergeists and one hoax perpetrated by schoolkids. None of it distracts him for very long. He wants to find their father. He wants Dean to stop looking so worried about him. He wants Jess back.

He doesn't know what he wants.

~*~

Telling Dean about his vision is easier than he expects, and Sam feels a pang of guilt for not telling him about Jessica, too. But Jess is gone, maybe for good, and if he's going to talk his brother into going back to Lawrence, he can't afford to give him an excuse to detour to California.

Dean is pale and strung taut as they investigate, and Sam's concern - for his brother, for the family now living in their old house - distracts him properly from thoughts of Jess for the first time since he pulled away from Lori's kiss.

At least until he glimpses the flying blonde hair and long white dress within the fiery figure approaching them.

"Dean, _no_!" he yells, because _god_, can it be -?

The figure coalesces and Sam can't put a name to the emotion he feels when Dean's hand shakes around a weapon for the first time Sam can remember.

"Mom?" Dean whispers.

Mom. Not Jess. And the way their mother is smiling at Dean, so far removed from Jess's blank face, drives the difference home.

"I'm sorry," his mother tells him.

"For what?" he asks. After all, it's not as if she...

She smiles sadly and turns away, then she is gone, too.

They leave Kansas as fast as they possibly can, and Dean burns through two states before he'll stop for the night. Sam stays in the motel room with an ice pack pressed against his bruised throat while Dean goes out looking for distraction. When the ice melts, Sam takes it through to the bathroom and dumps it in the sink. He braces himself with one hand on either side of the sink, feeling the whole hellish day, week, month catch up with him.

"God," he mutters, and holds on more tightly to keep from falling over. "God. Jess."

When he manages to raise his head again, she's watching him in the mirror, as if she had never vanished.

For the first time in a long time, things feel, if not normal, then at least right.

~*~

It takes time for her to draw close again, like she was before she vanished. But he watches for her now, doesn't take her presence for granted, whispers her name in the middle of the night and the middle of the day when Dean goes out for coffee, and she moves from reflections to sidewalks to the corner next to the door.

"Dude, you gotta stop staring into space like that," Dean says, waving the coffee under Sam's nose. "You need to get laid or somethin', Sammy."

It's nothing he hasn't said plenty of times before, but Sam is immediately and overwhelmingly furious. She's _right there_ and he can't lose her again and Dean -

"Back the fuck off, Dean, or I swear to god -" he snarls.

"Jeez, way to prove my point," Dean mutters, but he moves to the other side of the room and busies himself looking through their father's journal.

Sam peels the lid off his coffee with shaking fingers. It's exactly how he likes it.

That doesn't make it any easier to tolerate Dean's furtive, concerned glances.

~*~

"Let me know if you see any dead people, Haley Joel," Dean says.

"Dude, enough," Sam replies with as much finality as he can.

Dean laughs a little, then sobers. "No, I'm serious, all right? You gotta be careful, ghosts are attracted to that whole ESP thing you got going on."

Jess smiles for the first time in months, small and knowing, and Sam feels chilled.

_Dean doesn't know the half of it._

~*~

Dean hasn't said anything, though really, he doesn't need to: his silence is often more eloquent than words. He doesn't need to say anything for Sam to know that Dean doesn't blame him, not really. That doesn't mean Dean isn't brooding about the things Sam said, under Ellicott's influence, but Dean seems to have put it down to Sam's weird abilities leaving him vulnerable.

Sam sits on the edge of the bed, his head propped in his hands, listening to Dean fumbling in the first-aid kit in the bathroom, and wonders whether Dean is right, or whether by willing Jess to stay with him so much, he's drawing in everything else, too.

Which makes him responsible for the marks on Dean's chest, as well as the less visible scars.

Even knowing that, he wills Jess to leave the far corner by the door and move closer.

When their father calls the next morning to tell them that he knows what killed Jess and is tracking it, and to order them to look into the random disappearances of several couples, he doesn't even consider going with Dean to Indiana.

~*~

Jess doesn't walk with him. He rarely sees her move these days: she'll be in one place, then in another. Very occasionally she'll drift towards him, or away, but mostly she seems static.

He remembers dancing with her, dizzy in the twilight, her laughter echoing as the dancing turned into something more.

Sam thinks of her moving, moving on, leaving him, and wonders whether her lack of motion is caused by whatever is tethering her here.

Static isn't so bad. Not compared to the alternative.

~*~

He expects to see Jess when he arrives at the bus station, comes to a halt again, but Meg's there instead, all wicked smiles and mischief. Sam allows himself to be distracted for a while, tells himself this isn't like what happened with Lori. He's going to California, going there for Jess. Going there for himself, and for Dean. And whatever Meg may think, he's not going there for her.

The next afternoon, when Dean stops answering his cell phone and there's still no sign of Jess, Sam thinks maybe he's not going there at all.

He hotwires a car, hands clumsy with haste, and Jess trails cold, insubstantial fingers across his palm, leaving it numb and tingling like it's gone to sleep. Even though she was the reason, Sam thinks that maybe he's making the right decision by not going to California.

When he finds Dean tied to a tree, relief in his laughter as Sam works at the knots, he knows that even though Dean might be safer with Sam well away from him, the place he should be is here.

~*~

Dean shows up unexpectedly at the motel room where Sam has been holed up for three days, desperately searching for a way to save him, and sinks into a chair, looking paler and more fragile than Sam has ever seen him.

Jess watches Dean, follows him around, even touches him. It's the first time she's shown any interest in anyone but Sam. Dean shivers when she touches him, but he never complains of the cold.

Sam tries to convince himself that Jess's fascination is a response to his own focus on Dean, and nothing to do with the way his brother already looks half-dead.

He's always been a good liar. Even - especially - when the person he's trying to fool is himself.

~*~

He's sorry that Marshall Hall is dead. He's sorry that Layla is going to die. He's sorry for the way it is obviously weighing on Dean.

But he's not sorry for what he did. And even now, knowing all he knows, he'd do it again.

Sam isn't about to let death steal the only other person he truly loves.

~*~

Cassie comes as a shock. It's hard to believe that Dean would go against their father's orders, would break the cardinal Winchester rule and tell some girl the truth about the family business. Almost harder than it is to believe that Dean would fall in love in the first place.

Sam lied to Jess for a year and a half, told her almost nothing about his past. Not because of their father's rule, since Sam stopped obeying him unquestioningly at the age of fourteen. He lied to her because he was afraid she would do exactly what Cassie did to Dean: call him nuts and run as far away from him as she could.

He watches Dean and Cassie circle each other awkwardly, unable to meet each other's eyes, and wonders if this is what it would have been like with Jess. He doesn't think he would have been able to stand it.

But she would have lived.

Jess holds his gaze, her face unreadable, and doesn't look away.

~*~

Dean still hasn't come back to the motel room, and Sam isn't really expecting him now. He hopes Dean and Cassie are working some things out. He's been nudging Dean to talk to her, because he feels... guilty, perhaps. Guilt about the choice he made, compared to the choice Dean made. Guilt that he's still not certain he would choose differently, even now.

He guesses Dean was right to call him selfish. It may be the biggest difference between them.

The motel room is cold with Dean gone and Jess watching him from beside the wall. Sam goes into the bathroom, splashes cold water over his face. He doesn't look in the mirror.

When he comes back out, Jess is standing in the centre of the room, and he stops dead. Normally she sticks to the walls, to corners and shadows. Now she seems to fill the room, and her hair is shifting slightly in a breeze he can't feel.

She drifts towards him. Part of him wants to back away, but he stands firm. Leaving her is a mistake he doesn't plan to repeat.

She draws close, closer than she's come since he left her, since he lost her, close enough that he'd be able to feel her breath against his skin if she were breathing. Instead, there's nothing but a prickling cold that chills him all the way through.

Her mouth presses to the exact spot on his forehead where the first drop of her blood fell. He can barely feel it, a whisper against his skin, but the wave of cold that sweeps over him is so intense that his knees buckle and he falls onto the bed.

She drifts down after him. When she kisses - and that's not the right word, it's not a kiss, but he doesn't know what else to call it - the place where the second drop of her blood fell, a jolt passes through him, like electricity.

He doesn't dare move or reach out for her - it would be hard to anyway, numb as his limbs are at the moment. But he doesn't try to pull away, either: just lies there beneath her, letting her take what she needs from him. He owes her that, owes her so much more.

He watches the snow drift down outside the window, until she grows too solid for him to see through her any more.

~*~

In the morning, Sam shivers in the snow as he examines the scene of the latest death. He has a blinding headache, feels physically weaker than he has since his encounter with Bloody Mary.

Jess is colder than the snow, but he doesn't pull away when she pushes his hair back out of his eyes.

~*~

She touches him more often, now, presses her lips to his skin, draws the warmth and the strength out of him, absorbs them into herself. Some days she's substantial enough for him to feel her fingernails digging into his flesh, like she's seeking his blood. Some nights she watches him too intently for him to sleep.

Sometimes he feels like he's fading, like he's the ghost.

When visions start hitting him hard and fast, he's not entirely surprised. He's let her in, so deep inside of him; he's blurred the boundaries. It's not surprising that other things should creep over those borders too.

Dean watches him, worries. Sam has no reassurances to offer.

~*~

They have a streak of bad luck: a curse, a black dog that almost takes off Dean's leg, and worst of all, humans, always the hardest and most fucked-up to deal with. Sam thinks things have to improve, but Chicago proves him wrong.

In the aftermath, Dean drives until the Impala starts swerving, then finds them a motel room. They lay a salt line three inches wide right around the room, fix protective symbols to the walls, and only then do they patch each other up.

Dean disappears into the bathroom to wash up, and Sam sits down on his bed with a sigh, exhaustion creeping over him.

Jess drifts through the door, crosses the salt line as if it weren't there, and presses her lips to the blood still staining his face, a ghostly pressure growing less faint by the moment as she laps up his blood.

"Jess," he whispers, even as he feels his lips grow numb. It's a plea, although he's no longer sure what he's pleading for.

She presses her mouth again to the spots where her own blood fell all those months ago, but this time she moves on and brings her lips to his.

It's not a kiss, not like the kisses they used to share. It's cold, all his warmth and breath rushing out of him and into her, even as his lips part for her. He falls back across the bed and she drifts down with him.

She's growing more substantial by the moment. Her hair falls down around him, ethereal, cutting him off from the world. Her mouth is still pressed to his, and he can't breathe.

He doesn't try to break away, even when his heart starts to hammer in his chest. Even when the world fades and goes dark around him.

The next thing Sam is aware of is Dean's hand, hot against the cold of his shoulder, shaking him back to consciousness.

"Sam? Sammy, come on, wake up."

"M'awake," Sam manages to mumble through numb lips. He prises open his eyes to see Dean standing in front of him, a towel wrapped around his waist, brows lowered with concern.

"Was starting to think you'd passed out from blood loss," Dean says, not quite a joke. "Go wash up, Sammy, then you can crash all you want."

There's no sign of Jess, but Sam doesn't think she will have gone far.

~*~

In Richardson, Texas, Jess registers on the EMF meter for the first time.

"I think that thing's still got a little juice in it," Dean says, looking at the telephone pole. "It's screwin' with all the readings."

Sam looks at the pole, then at Jess, standing next to it, more substantial than he's seen her yet, smiling knowingly at him. He swallows hard.

"Yeah," he says, "that'd do it."

~*~

The shtriga knocks him to the bed, and Sam can feel it starting to feed.

The sensation is frighteningly familiar, making it hard for him to fight back.

The shot echoes around the room, and the shtriga and the drain on his energy are gone, but Sam can't move for a long moment, gasping for air, trying to convince his numb limbs to cooperate.

"You okay, little brother?" Dean asks.

Sam doesn't trust his voice, gives a thumbs up instead. His head is spinning, but his thoughts are whirling faster.

For the first time in months, he wonders what the hell he's done. What the hell he's _doing_.

~*~

When he meets Sarah, he wonders if Jess will vanish again, like she did when Lori kissed him. If he's honest, he might even be hoping that she will. Or that she'll at least back off a little, for a while, until he can figure out what he's doing, what he's playing with here.

He loves Jess, but this isn't the Jess he knew, and while her kisses always made his head spin, this is something else.

He's tired of being cold all the time, and Sarah's cheek is warm under his fingers when he brushes away her eyelash.

He wavers, torn, until finally he snaps. He kisses Sarah with intent, feels heat and life flare between them as she laughs against his mouth and tugs him closer.

Sam kisses her until he feels warm again, and tries to tell himself he's not stealing her heat the way Jess takes his.

~*~

He half-expects Jess to vanish after that, but she doesn't. She comes to him in the shower, instead, water hesitating in mid-air a moment before falling right through her. She presses her lips to his until he's shaking, then drifts down and opens her mouth around his cock.

It's cold, and tingling energy, and there's nothing erotic about it. But he can feel her, almost, can see her hair tumbling around her face, can feel her eyes intent upon his face as he throws his head back.

It's - he doesn't want this, or at least not like this. He wants her - wants the _real_ her - he wants -

She laps up a drop of pre-come and becomes immediately more substantial, pressing cold around his cock. And he doesn't want this, he keeps telling himself this isn't what he wants, but it's what _she_ wants, and it feels... not good, but... intense.

He brings one trembling arm up to press across his face, trying to escape her gaze, but he started seeing her with his eyes closed long before she started touching him, and he can't escape her that way. He lets his arm drop, meets her gaze, feels tears prickle behind his eyes.

This is what she wants, and he can't deny her.

He comes, shaking, silent, and she swallows it all down, more corporeal by the moment as she does so, until he can feel the intensity and pressure of her mouth around him, cold as ever.

She releases him and moves back up to press her lips to his again, stealing his breath. Her mouth is almost solid against his, though not yet solid enough to draw blood when she bites down on his lower lip.

Finally she pulls back, and Sam sags against the tiled wall, feeling himself slip down to the shower floor, unable to hold himself up.

Jess smiles and drifts away through the shower curtain.

Sam sits in the shower until the water turns lukewarm, until he stops trembling, until he can get his feet back under him, and then he drags himself back out into the room.

It's empty. There's no sign of Jess, and he can't help but feel a pang of guilty relief.

He sinks onto his bed and grabs his cell phone. He scrolls through until he finds Sarah's number, and then he erases it.

~*~

Dean thinks the concept of actual, real vampires is like a hilariously bad joke.

Sam doesn't, even before he sees them. He knows the power blood can hold.

He remembers Jess's blood dripping on his face. He remembers standing outside the burning apartment building, watching the flames, and wiping it off with one hand.

He remembers staring at the blood for a long, long time, before he raised his fingers to his mouth, _Jess_ and _I can't lose you, **I can't lose you**_ the only words ringing in his mind.

Sam knows exactly how powerful blood can be.

~*~

In Salvation, Iowa, another building burns, and Dean holds him back, stops him from running back inside.

"That thing killed Jess," Sam says later, his voice tight. "That thing killed Mom."

"You said it yourself once," Dean answers, "that no matter what we do, they're gone. And they're never coming back."

It's all more than Sam can bear, suddenly, and before he knows what he's doing, he's shoving Dean up against the wall.

"Don't you say that! Don't you -" Sam struggles for words. "Not after all this, don't you say that."

Because he's been starting to suspect the same thing, starting to understand that Jess is never going to come all the way back, starting to wonder how much of her is Jess at all.

Suspecting is one thing. Accepting it is another. And hearing it said out loud is more than he can handle right now, when it feels like everything is falling apart again.

~*~

"For you or Dad, the things I'm willing to do or kill, it's just, uh..." Dean says quietly. "It scares me sometimes."

Sam stares at him, then glances across to where Jess is hovering. Because yeah. Knowing how far you'll go to keep the people you love with you... it frightens the hell out of him too.

Jess meets his eyes evenly. Sam can't find a thing to say.

~*~

Dean's blood is everywhere. All over his clothes, smeared across his face. Smeared across Sam's hands, too, from helping Dean into the Impala.

"Killing this demon comes first – before me, before everything," his father insists.

Sam looks into the rear-view mirror, and for the first time in a long time, the only face he sees there is Dean's.

"No, sir," he says. "Not before everything."

~*~

The hospital is colourless and drab. Sam thinks Dean will hate it, when he wakes up. _When_, not _if_.

Jess fits in, her faded colours blending with the hospital's sterile tones. Sam tries not to think about that.

She corners him as he's heading back to Dean's room with the ouija board, and presses him up against the wall, kisses his forehead where her blood fell.

Sam reels, struggles for control. Then her mouth touches his, and he feels the warmth flooding out of him.

Pulling away is one of the hardest things he's ever done.

"No," he says, meeting her cold eyes.

She tries to move back in, recapture his mouth, but he evades her.

"No," he repeats. "No."

Sam knows the power of words as well as he knows the power of blood. Knows the power of will and want.

He's not surprised when she disappears.

~*~

He talks to Dean, with the ouija board and out loud. He fetches their father's journal and reads to Dean about Reapers, in case it can somehow help him. In the end he just pleads.

"Dean, you've got to hold on. You can't go, man, not now." _You can't leave me. I can't lose you, Dean._

Sam knows he has to choose. He knows, somewhere deep down, bone-deep instinct, that he can't hold on to them both at once. He couldn't keep Jess with him, not really, but Dean isn't gone yet. It can't be too late for him. Sam refuses to believe that.

In the end, it's not as hard a decision as he would have expected it to be, a few months or even a few days ago.

He takes a small knife from his pocket, raises Dean's arm, and runs the blade across the vein.

Blood wells up, and Sam bows his head.

Across the bed, Jess is staring at him, and he knows exactly what this means.

He touches the blood with one finger, raises it to his mouth, tastes Dean on his lips and on his tongue. It's not enough. He lowers his head, presses his mouth to Dean's arm. Not a kiss, no more than Jess's touches were. A claim. An anchor. A plea.

He licks away the blood from the shallow cut, holds it in his mouth, raises his head to gaze at Dean.

"I can't lose you," he says aloud. The power of words, of will, of blood. "I can't lose you, Dean. Stay with me."

Across the bed, Jess flickers once, twice, and is gone.

~*~

In the aftermath, Dean wanders around Bobby's house and scrapyard silently, expressionlessly. His eyes are blank, and he drifts like a ghost.

Sam murmurs his name in the middle of the night and the middle of the day, and waits for Dean to emerge from the nightmares and draw close again.

He thinks that this time, if he waits long enough, the warmth will return.


End file.
